Is there a way to get WiFi NOISE levels for a mobile device?

Over time, I've had cable, and DSL, and
WISP, and in the end, they all work.

Click to expand...

Yeah, tho dsl is a lot easier to setup, just plug it in and go.

I've set it up for almost everyone I know.

Anyway, since you don't use InSSIDer, here's a screen
shot of Fritz!App WLAN freeware that I just tested for
you as a 1-to-1 replacement for inSSIDer, especially when
working with multiple access points with the same SSID.

Notice that the three signals shown are
1. My main router (asterisks indicate the connection)

Click to expand...

I don't get any asterisks on mine for some reason.

2. My WiFi extender (which is just another router)
3. A bounce of the incoming WISP signal

Click to expand...

I didn't test it by walking around, but it seems pretty
robust, so I'd assume those two asterisks would switch
to the middle signal when the phone switches from one
router to the other.

Click to expand...

The first two signals have the same SSID, but different
frequencies. In your case, the SSID is the same, and the
frequency is the same, so you'll have two overlapping
parabolas of different colors, one of which (the taller
one generally) will have the two asterisks.

Click to expand...

No asterisks at all for some reason.

Let me know what you think of the app

Click to expand...

Love it, definitely a keeper.

(as it has more stuff than this); but I think it replaces
inSSIDer as far as I can tell from a quick look here today.

It's really nice because it saves all your APK files, so
you can save them off the phone, and re-install them
whenever you want at your leisure without having to worry
that they'll get overwritten (it increments them if the app
is updated, I think).

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What sort of walls ? Mine are concrete block but because
of the patio doors, most of the time my router sends thru
the glass. Not with the wifi extender tho, its got a block
wall between the router and the wifi extender.

Click to expand...

The walls are stucco on the outside, gypsum on the inside,
and wood & fiberglass in the middle.

The windows out here are all mandated to be some kind of
sunlight factor (I don't know the details) that means they
have metal in the glass somehow. It's illegal, as I recall,
to replace the glass with anything else.

It's absolutely shocking how well the glass attenuates
a radio signal.

he's dying
of diabetes and we didn't expect him to last this long.
He's had one leg chopped off and even just going to
the toilet really takes it out of him due to his very bad
heart.

Click to expand...

Wow. I'm sorry for him. I wish him the best.
I have been researching this thing called "insulin resistance",
which seems to have some merit. It's the oddest diet in the
world though, where you consume lots of fat, and some
protein, but no carbs (well, 22 grams of carbs a day,
which is so little that you can't not get that much).

Your tongue tastes like it has been licking paint thinner,
since you switched your metabolism from glucosis to
ketosis (you used up all the glucose in your body and
liver glycogen in the first two or three days).

The theory is that, over time, on this high-fat almost
no-carb diet, your body eventually normalizes & reduces the
insulin resistance, which sort of cures the pre-diabetes
since insulin is secreted in massive amounts from the
pancreas when you're in insulin resistance (which simply
means the receptor cells don't react like they used to,
so you need more and more insulin to get the same effect).

Anyway, I wish him the best, as glucose is a poison when
in high amounts in the body, if insulin isn't getting it
out of the blood and into the cells, liver glycogen,
and adipose fat stores.

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Jeff Liebermann knows more about this than anyone, but,
I generally call your setup a "repeater" while I call
my setup an "extender".

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's what my wifi extender calls it too.

The way I understand it, my "wired" extender gets me
the same signal speeds (give or take) as the original
router, while your "wireless" repeater halves the speed.

Click to expand...

Yes, that is correct.

Of course, it's a *lot easier* to set up the repeater
because you don't have to run wires (except for power).

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's why I did it that way.

I have no idea about the lightning risk though, but I
have antennas all over the place, so I guess I should
be crossing my fingers.

Click to expand...

I only have an external TV antenna and its just off
the edge of the flat roof so is only 11' off the ground.
Some very big trees along the park/south side of the
house and I've never had a lightning strike on those, yet.

I only have an external TV antenna and its just off
the edge of the flat roof so is only 11' off the ground.
Some very big trees along the park/south side of the
house and I've never had a lightning strike on those, yet.

Click to expand...

Lightning is a strange beast.
It actually mostly comes from the ground and goes *up* into the sky,
so, in effect, it *knows* where you are at all times.

You don't want to be near where lines of force converge, as in
the tip of anything metal, for example.

At that point, the electric field lines build up, and, zzzzzap,
the air molecules are rarefied into a plasma (as I understand it).

That plasma is basically a liquid column of electrons, which
allows the current to flow in massive amounts, if only for
a split second.

Kaboom! By the time you hear the sonic waves from the pulsating
pressure wave, you're dead.

The walls are stucco on the outside, gypsum on
the inside, and wood & fiberglass in the middle.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I assumed it was that, most commonly seen in north america.

The windows out here are all mandated to be some kind
of sunlight factor (I don't know the details) that means
they have metal in the glass somehow. It's illegal, as
I recall, to replace the glass with anything else.

Click to expand...

We don't have anything like that here, but it doesn't
get anything like as cold here. There is just one recorded
event of snow here in the met records and it didn't see
any snow on the ground at all.

It's absolutely shocking how well the glass attenuates
a radio signal.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm not surprised with the metallisation.

You get the same effect with microwave oven windows.

Wow. I'm sorry for him. I wish him the best.
I have been researching this thing called "insulin resistance",
which seems to have some merit. It's the oddest diet in the
world though, where you consume lots of fat, and some
protein, but no carbs (well, 22 grams of carbs a day,
which is so little that you can't not get that much).

Click to expand...

Wouldn't appeal to me, my breakfast is a great slab
of my own multigrain toast, as thick as will still go
in the toaster with the toaster chosen to be able to
do the thickest toast. And roast potatoes almost
every night except when eating pizza or steak.

Your tongue tastes like it has been licking paint thinner,

Click to expand...

That doesn't appeal either.

since you switched your metabolism from glucosis to
ketosis (you used up all the glucose in your body and
liver glycogen in the first two or three days).

Click to expand...

The theory is that, over time, on this high-fat almost
no-carb diet, your body eventually normalizes & reduces
the insulin resistance, which sort of cures the pre-diabetes
since insulin is secreted in massive amounts from the
pancreas when you're in insulin resistance (which simply
means the receptor cells don't react like they used to,
so you need more and more insulin to get the same effect).

Click to expand...

I don't have that problem myself, I'm right in the middle of
the ideal BMI and walk for exercise a lot except in the winter.

Anyway, I wish him the best, as glucose is a poison when
in high amounts in the body, if insulin isn't getting it
out of the blood and into the cells, liver glycogen,
and adipose fat stores.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's why he had his leg chopped off. Managed to
burn it on the engine cover in the RV because he had no
feeling in his feet and it never did heal due to the diabetes.

He's got one hell of a slow heartbeat. They were planning
to fit a pacemaker but gave up on that due to the MRSA
they never could get rid of.

Hmmmmm... dunno why. Maybe I get the asterisks only
because it knows that there are two SSIDs that it calls 'similar'.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I should know tomorrow. The grandson has just showed
up borrowing a power cord and has said he wants to use the
wifi extender and I have said I will power it tomorrow. Its just
gone 6pm here and there are no lights out there and a hell
of a jungle in my backyard.

I guess I could turn one router off, but, as I said, I'm
in bed, and if I move about, the whole house goes bonkers
because of the alarm noises, so, I'll save that for another day.

One *huge* advantage in outdoor applications of the WISP radios
(which, incidentally, cost the same as a puny router) is that
they have the POWER thing all figured out.

They use 15 to 24VDC power over Ethernet, so, you can easily
go about 300 feet (and you can daisy chain them further).

So, if you have to run wires anyway, you would rather run
outdoor cat5 instead of outdoor extension cords.

The advantages?

1. Same cost as a router
2. 300' of cat5 is cheaper than 300' of extension cord
3. No loss in speed
4. Best of all, signal strength 10x that of a router
(at least in the USA)

Click to expand...

The economics is a bit different here because I normally
use what I have got from garage/yard sales for peanuts
with routers and extension cords and don't see long CAT5
very often at all at those, if ever.

Jeff Liebermann knows more about this than anyone, but,
I generally call your setup a "repeater" while I call
my setup an "extender".

Click to expand...

In my travels, I've come to know extenders and repeaters as being
synonymous. The marketing folks call them extenders, but the technical folks
call them repeaters. They are wireless devices that spend half their time
listening and the other half talking, repeating what they heard. They
operate on a single channel and reduce the effective throughput by more than
half.

OTOH, when the connection into the network is wired rather than wireless,
it's an Access Point (AP). An AP is usually configured to use a different,
non-overlapping channel than the main WiFi device, and it can use the same
SSID or a different SSID, depending on your needs.

The way I understand it, my "wired" extender gets me
the same signal speeds (give or take) as the original
router, while your "wireless" repeater halves the
speed.

Click to expand...

To me, it sounds like you have an Access Point and he has an
extender/repeater, BICBW.

To me, it sounds like you have an Access Point and he has an
extender/repeater, BICBW.

Click to expand...

Is this what you're saying, in a nutshell?
1. Extender = same as repeater
2. Repeater = wireless, same channel, same or different SSID
3. Access Point = wired, different channel, same or different SSID

If so, then Mr. Rod Speed has a repeater/extender, while I have
a second access point wired to my main router.

I never looked up the definitions, so, maybe I have been using
the words repeater/extender incorrectly.

A range extender or wireless repeater (same thing) give me the most
problems with streaming video because of the limited size of the
various buffers along the path. If you do a throughput test from one
of the internet speed tests, or with a local program (iperf3), you'll
see that the graphs of the speeds are very erratic and jumpy. That's
fine for streaming audio, where buffering 15-20 seconds of music is
common, but not for video, where the same buffers might be only
seconds long.

but,
I generally call your setup a "repeater" while I call
my setup an "extender".

Click to expand...

A "range extender" and "wireless repeater" are the same thing usually
involving a single access point and a single client computah. A
"wireless mesh network" is the same, except it usually involves one
access point that's connected to the internet, and multiple clients.
It's much the same distinction as a wired bridge, which has exactly 2
ports, and a wired switch, which 3 or more ports. In other words, a
mesh network is an expanded version of the two port range extender.

The way I understand it, my "wired" extender gets me
the same signal speeds (give or take) as the original
router, while your "wireless" repeater halves the
speed.

Click to expand...

Nope. They're identical. Both "store and forward" packets. Since
only one transmitter can be on the air at a time, this store and
forward action produces twice as many packets flying through the air
at a time, which reducing the maximum speed. For example, if your
direct link between your client computah runs at some speed, at best
adding a repeater will cut it in half. Often, it's much worse than
half.

The exceptions to this are the full duplex repeaters and the cross
band repeaters. Both are rather scarce in home wi-fi hardware, but
fairly common in mesh networks. The store and forward delay only
happens because the repeater cannot transmit and receive at the same
time with only one radio. However, by adding a 2nd radio, on a
different channel, it can simultaneously transmit while receiving.
Similarly, the added 2nd radio can be on a different band, such as
5GHz. There's still a slight reduction in speed, because packets need
to be received completely before they can be retransmitted, but since
a packet can be received while the previous packet is being
transmitted, the maximum speed reduction is not as drastic and
certainly not 50%.

Of course, it's a *lot easier* to set up the repeater
because you don't have to run wires (except for power).

Click to expand...

Sigh. I never could understand the "fear of wires" problem. If you
look at advertising photos of computer systems, you NEVER see any
wires. They're always hidden from sight. No power cords, no monitor
cables, no chargers, no tangled mess of wires that are the bane of
interior decorators everywhere. It's like the wired equivalent of the
tin foil hat people found among wireless devices.

I have no idea about the lightning risk though, but I
have antennas all over the place, so I guess I should
be crossing my fingers.

Click to expand...

Lightning protection is easy. Do good deeds and you will not incur
the wrath of the thunder gods.

Ummmm... WiFi-SNR perhaps?
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.javali.wifisnr>
That catch is that you have to be connected to the remote access point
in order to generate a graph. Also, dive into "Setting" and check the
"Display results in text" box. I'm sitting about 3 ft from my AP and
it shows an average of about 40dB SNR.

Is this what you're saying, in a nutshell?
1. Extender = same as repeater
Right.

2. Repeater = wireless, same channel, same or different SSID

Click to expand...

Rong. You cannot repeat from one SSID to another SSID. The Wi-Fi
infrastructure mode decrees that you can only send packets to devices
with the same SSID. So it is written, so it must be, unless you run
an Ad-Hoc network.

3. Access Point = wired, different channel, same or different SSID

Click to expand...

Same problem. You can't connect across different SSID's except with
an ad-hoc network, which doesn't have an SSID.

The access point is just the wireless bridge part of a wireless
router. More specifically, a wireless access point is a wireless
bridge. On one side of the bridge, you have an ethernet connection
that would go to a router or modem. On the other side, you have
another ethernet connection, but one that encapsulates all the
ethernet packets inside 802.11 packets. Traffic only moves across the
bridge when the designated destination address is across the other
side of the bridge (except for broadcasts and management packets,
which go everywhere).

If so, then Mr. Rod Speed has a repeater/extender, while I have
a second access point wired to my main router.

I never looked up the definitions, so, maybe I have been using
the words repeater/extender incorrectly.

Click to expand...

You're in good company as many manufacturers and writers have the same
problem. I once tried to untangle the various forms of "bridge":
<http://wireless.navas.us/index.php?title=Wi-Fi#Wireless_Bridge_Types>
Since nobody has bothered to correct this over the years, I'll assume
I got it right. One thing to remember is that everything in Wi-Fi
happens at Layer 2 (MAC layer). Layer 3 (TCP/IP) is only involved in
managing the device usually via a web browser.

I stand corrected.

Click to expand...

No need to stand up when correcting yourself. It can be done sitting
down.

[...] One thing to remember is that everything in Wi-Fi
happens at Layer 2 (MAC layer).

Click to expand...

If you are taking OSI here, layer 2 is the data link layer. It has a
sub-layer that handles media access control, so "Layer 2 (MAC layer)" is
an ambiguous phrase. But, yes, bridging is a link layer function.

Layer 3 (TCP/IP) is only involved in
managing the device usually via a web browser.

Click to expand...

IP is a network protocol (layer 3), but TCP is a transport protocol
(layer 4).

Jeff: I never understood "bridges" (nor Gateways), but, I do
understand my wired access point, so, if *that* is merely a bridge
to my router, then I understand bridges (which I knew to be at the
MAC level since the MAC of the mobile device is known to the router
but not known to the Internet).

Nope. They're identical. Both "store and forward" packets. Since
only one transmitter can be on the air at a time, this store and
forward action produces twice as many packets flying through the air
at a time, which reducing the maximum speed. For example, if your
direct link between your client computah runs at some speed, at best
adding a repeater will cut it in half. Often, it's much worse than
half.

Click to expand...

I had not realized that my WRT54G wired as an access point (i.e.,
a bridge) to my Netgear main router is at half the speed.

However, by adding a 2nd radio, on a
different channel, it can simultaneously transmit while receiving.
Similarly, the added 2nd radio can be on a different band, such as
5GHz. There's still a slight reduction in speed,

Click to expand...

So, in effect, my setup is still *faster* than Rod Speed's setup,
but, not twice as fast.

My spare Linksys WRT54G router is set up, on your advice of, oh,
about two or three years ago, to broadcast on a different channel
(channel 1) than the main Netgear router (channel 2) but on the
same SSID (so that mobile devices can switch seamlessly between
them - which is something Android seems to do better than iOS
based on my measurements years ago).

While the newer Netgear router is dual band, the Linksys is only
2.4GHz, so I don't have the option of switching the band.

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